you're standing on my nerves.

Maybe it's hormones, or not enough sleep. A vitamin imbalance, malnutrition, lack of guacamole. Maybe I'm a little bit sick. Maybe it's all of it. The end result is, I woke up grumpy today. And not like the bumper sticker... I mean, I woke up in a grouchy mood. Quit being annoying with your bumper stickers.

I tried to recover, making the cereal and talking in a pleasant voice to all the small people stepping on my feet. But we were out of milk. And you know what? When it's morning and you are already out of milk, life starts to look pretty bleak. You start noticing spots on the ceiling, little scratchy places in your throat. And the kids, the kids always know how to seize the day, grabbing you by the ears and screaming into your tired, wrinkled face. Maybe out of excitement, maybe because their sister won't be a leopard, whatever. It's loud.

And I'm an old hand at this, so I choke it down and talk in my Michelle Duggar voice, planning on punching a pillow or two in my own room when the blessed naptime hour finally comes. I sat on the couch for a moment, considering if I was too irritable to do school. My grownup self won out, and we started with story time, right after I griped for a few minutes about people peeing on the bathroom floor, right next to the toilet, instead of inside the toilet, directly before reacquiring my calm voice.

We moved through school at a brisk pace, although by the end I may or may not have been shrieking wildly inside my head. The MOG came home and casually made a few passing comments about the State of the House and was almost cut in two. He backtracked a little. "Uh, what can I do for you?" he asked, overly cautiously. "Do you want me to go to Dollar General and get some milk so you can eat?" I assured him that nothing on this earth could help me now. He went back to his office, which in retrospect was probably a wise move.

I'm better now, although I can still feel that little internal switch, just one flick from "Nuts". I'd lay low, if I were you.